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As the campaigning for the 2012 election nears, America is still in deep trouble in unemployment and ever-increasing job-killing import competition. We lost 55,000 manufacturing facilities in the last decade, and those losses continue at about 1,000 per month along with many more good jobs.

Any changes in trade policy to correct this grievous situation and thereby help President Obama’s re-election will have to start in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate. Who’s doing the most to sponsor new trade policy legislation ? He’s Ohio’s senior Sen. Sherrod Brown. He’s also up for re-election in a crucial race that will have much  national attention. Who wins in Ohio may well decide which party will control the Senate and who wins the presidency!

Sen. Brown is a priority  target for Republicans, who oppose his leadership on trade reform to correct the disastrous one-sided U.S. free trade policies of Wall Street, big banks, and major multinational companies.

Sen. Brown needs the help of all like-minded organizations. I urge USW to raise its strong voice to make trade reform a major election issue for voters and a big boost for an Obama victory as well as for Ohio’s Sen. Brown.

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Kenneth N, Davis, Jr. also is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce/International and former IBM vice president and chief financial officer.

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Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe where he talked about a bill he is introducing next week to deal with China currency. Brown states, “We continue to lose ground to China because they don’t play fair.” He also mentions the right thing for America to do is to preserve American manufacturing.

During the session, Joe Scarborough asked the Senator what was on his lapel. Brown indicated that it was a canary in a bird cage which signified the mine workers of hundreds of years ago when they had no strong union.

Brown said, a baby born in this country 100 years ago lived about 45 years old but because of Medicare, Social Security, safe drinking water, civil rights and women’s rights, people in this society have a much better shot at the middle class. That’s what that signifies.

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

America plays the role of abused partner in its relationship with China. Although the Asian giant repeatedly injures U.S. industry by violating international trade rules, America has responded, almost exclusively, by pleading and begging for China to stop.

China says it’s sorry. And continues to violate the rules. America respectfully beseeches China to discontinue manipulating its currency, and China says it will. Then it allows the value to increase a completely insignificant amount. Still America does nothing. Nothing. It simply accepts the abuse.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Michael Williams, senior vice president of U.S. Steel stood with me Wednesday at a press conference in Pittsburgh to urge President Obama in his meetings this week with Chinese President Hu Jintao to announce that America is done with soft talk. We want President Obama to tell President Hu that America has heard enough promises; the United States is bucking up and pulling out that big stick that Teddy Roosevelt carried in foreign policy negotiations.

This is a rare issue on which politicians, Republican and Democrat, manufacturers and organized labor all agree. Here’s what Sen. Casey said at the press conference, “In my estimation, and that of a lot of Americans, the time for talking is over. The time for action is now.” He, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., plan to introduce legislation next week to force the federal government to hold China accountable, to enforce compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules – rules that China agreed to comply with when WTO countries permitted it to join even though it is a non-market economy.

Mr. Williams described the effect of China’s unchallenged trade practices on American steel production:

“Our facilities in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States are among the most advanced in the world:

• We make the highest quality steel for the most demanding applications;
• Our technology is world competitive; and
• Our workers are second to none in skill and know-how.

However, the more than 21,000 U.S. Steel employees nationwide, and the more than 4,700 employees here in Pennsylvania, know all too well that we do not always operate in a fair global marketplace.   Instead, we are often faced with the reality of a distorted market – a market where we have to compete against job-stealing dumped and subsidized imports from countries that abuse the rules to gain a false competitive advantage.

No country more than China hurts all American manufacturing by the way it artificially undervalues its currency – making its exports artificially cheap and making competitive imports from the U.S. and elsewhere artificially expensive.”

Here are the facts: American industries have found that they can produce products, ship them to China and price them lower than Chinese competitors.  But all too often, China prohibits sale of the American-made products on the mainland.

Sen. Casey gave an example, C.F. Martin & Co., which manufacturers its world-famous guitars in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Martin tried to register its mark to sell its instruments in China. But it has been unable to do that because a Chinese manufacturer already registered the mark and is counterfeiting the guitars. “To say it is unlawful does not begin to describe the gravity of it,” the senator said.

In addition to countenancing counterfeiting, China provides illegal subsidies to its export industries, violates international regulations forbidding forced technology transfer when American companies seek to manufacture in China and deliberately undervalues its currency to falsely lower the price of its exports.

When Mr. Williams, Sen. Casey and I all said this must be stopped with enforcement of international regulations, someone in the audience asked if that would prompt a dreaded trade war. That won’t happen because we already are in a trade war. The United States simply is not fighting back. We are playing the passive partner in a perverted relationship, repeatedly allowing the abuser to pound us.

Mr. Williams said it best:

“U.S. Steel wants a strong America. To have a strong America, we need a strong manufacturing base. To have a strong manufacturing base, we need strong enforcement of international trade regulations.”

Sen. Casey agreed:

“Our government must take every step necessary. It is not enough to say to the unemployed, ‘We are trying and we are asking.’”

Wield the stick, President Obama.

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Leo W. Gerard also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and chairs the labor federation’s Public Policy Committee. President Barack Obama recently appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. He serves as co-chairman of the BlueGreen Alliance and on the boards of the Apollo Alliance, Campaign for America’s Future and the Economic Policy Institute.  He is a member of the IMF and ICEM global labor federations and was instrumental in creating Workers Uniting, the first global union.

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

Red, as in furiously red, defined the day last fall when a consortium of companies announced it wanted $450 million in U.S. stimulus money to build a wind farm in Texas, creating 2,000 jobs in China and 300 in America.

Now, nine months later, things have cooled down and turned around. In a deal with the United Steelworkers (USW), two Chinese companies have agreed to build as much of the wind turbines as possible in America, using American-made steel, and creating perhaps 1,000 American jobs.

The deal is a result of white collar Chinese executives negotiating with blue collar union officers to create green collar jobs in the U.S. The agreement defies stereotypes about unions as constantly combative, excessively expensive and environmentally challenged. The USW has a track record of engaging with enlightened CEOs for mutual benefit.  It has a long green history. And it has worked to return off-shored jobs to the U.S.

The USW, like the Democrats in the House and Senate with their Make It in America program, is devoted to preserving and creating family-supporting, prosperity-generating manufacturing jobs in America. And if they’re green, all the better.

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross has first-hand experience negotiating with unions, including the USW, to sustain U.S. manufacturing. He describes it positively. Here he is on PBS’ Charlie Rose on Aug. 2:

“I have found the leaders of big industrial unions, the steelworkers, the auto workers, they understand dynamics of industry at least as well as the senior management of the companies.”

Ross talked to Rose about dealing with the USW during the time when he was buying  LTV Steel:

“We worked out a contract that took 32 job classifications down to five, changed work rules to make it more flexible and most important of all, we put in a blue collar bonus system. . .We became the most efficient steel company in America. We were making steel with less than one man hour per ton. The Chinese at the time were using six man hours per ton. We were actually exporting some steel to China.”

Ross accomplished that while paying among the highest wages for manufacturing workers in America.

The USW approached the Chinese companies that planned the $1.5 billion Texas wind farm, A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd. and Shenyang Power Group, the same way it did Ross. The meetings occurred with the help of U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private equity firm that facilitates international financing and investment in renewable energy projects. Jinxiang Lu, chairman and chief executive of Shenyang Power, said talking to the union enabled him to see its “vision for win-win relationships between manufacturers and workers.”

For the USW, this deal means the Chinese firms will initially buy approximately 50,000 tons of steel manufactured in unionized American mills to fabricate towers and rebar for the 615 megawatt wind farm in Texas, will employ Americans at a wind turbine assembly plant to be built in Nevada, and will employ more American workers in green jobs at plants constructing the blades, towers and thousands of other wind turbine parts.

For the Chinese companies, the USW, the largest manufacturing union in America, will use its long list of industry contacts to help construct an American supply chain essential to amass the approximately 8,000 components in a wind turbine. The idea is to collaboratively create a solid manufacturing, assembly, component sourcing, and distribution system so that this team – the Chinese companies, U.S. Renewable Energy Group and the USW — will build many more wind farms after the first in Texas.  

Additional wind farms mean more renewable energy freeing the U.S. from reliance on foreign oil. As U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says, there’s no point in replacing imported foreign oil with imported wind turbines. For energy and economic independence, green manufacturing capacity and green jobs must be in the U.S.

This deal does that. And there’s nothing unusual about foreign companies employing Americans. Many Americans, including USW members, already work in factories owned by many different foreign national companies, including German, Russian, Japanese, Mexican, and Brazilian, with names like Bridgestone-Firestone, Arcelor-Mittal, Rio Tinto, Grupo Mexico, Svenska Cellulosa AB (SCA) and Severstal.

In at least one other case, action by the USW forced the hand of a Chinese company to move jobs to the U.S. Tianjin Pipe, the world’s largest manufacturer of steel pipe, said it could not export profitably to the United States if tariffs rose above 20 percent. This was after the USW and seven steel manufacturers filed a petition with U.S. trade agencies in April of 2009 accusing China of illegally dumping and subsidizing the type of pipe used in the oil and gas industry. The union won that case this past April, and the U.S. Commerce Department imposed import duties ranging from 30 to 100 percent to give the domestic industry relief from the unfair trade practices. To continue selling in the U.S., Tianjin Pipe had no choice but to build an American pipe mill. Construction is expected to begin in Texas this fall on the $1 billion plant to employ 600 by 2010.

Although the USW is cooperating with A-Power and Shenyang Power, it will not back off its trade cases involving exported Chinese steel, pipe, tires, paper and other manufactured products. The stakes for U.S. jobs are just too high.

Back in 1990, when green was not as trendy, the USW recognized that the environment would be among the most important issues of the era and issued the report, “Our Children’s World.”  Since then, it has steadily promoted green — became a founding member of the BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance, which promote renewable energy and renewable energy jobs.

Good, green American manufacturing jobs. Establishing American energy independence. It is win-win. And it’s getting a green light now.

 

By Scott Paul
Executive Director of Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM)    

The latest U.S. trade figures came out on Tuesday morning and the news is ugly.  Our growing trade deficit will threaten job creation in any economic recovery that begins to take shape.  Not only did the monthly U.S. trade deficit increase, but exports to China actually dropped in February.      

These are important points because Congress and the Administration have critical roles to play in bringing our trade deficit down.  Congress can begin by passing legislation to hold China and other countries accountable for the manipulation of their currencies, which has cost the U.S. well in excess of one million jobs.  Our overall trade deficit with China has led to 2.4 million lost jobs since 2001 in every congressional district in America.    

Senators Schumer, Graham, Stabenow, Brown (OH), and others are doing terrific work on currency legislation.  Senator Schumer has said he wants a vote on their bill by May.  We agree—pass the legislation and put an end to China’s currency manipulation.  Congressman Tim Ryan has authored legislation (H.R. 2378) that is similar, though not identical.  Congress should remember this: major changes in our trade balance and exchange rate policy have always been helped along by congressional action.    

The President should also be prepared to replicate the actions taken by President Richard Nixon in 1971 (import tariffs) and President Ronald Reagan in 1985 (currency rate adjustment through the Plaza Accord) to create jobs and reduce our trade deficit.  The Administration is taking a three month deferment on its decision to name China as a currency manipulator, a report to Congress normally due on April 15.  If three months elapse without a meaningful adjustment in China’s currency, China should obviously be named as a manipulator.  Otherwise, as Harvard professor Niall Ferguson said at a recent hearing, the U.S. will be considered “the wimps of the Western world.”  Regardless of the decision to name China as a manipulator, the legislation should proceed.  The more penalties for cheating, the less likely cheating will become.  It’s sound public policy, a terrific economic stimulus (Economist Fred Bergsten estimates that eliminating currency manipulation will create a minimum of 700,000 jobs), and doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime.  The only opposition to the legislation comes from outsourcers and ideologues.  My simple message is this: want jobs? Stop currency manipulation now.  

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This piece is re-posted from AAM’s Manufacture This blog 

 

  

 

By Leo W. Gerard
International President

Barack Obama proved Friday he’s got grit. He enforced trade laws.

These are special trade safeguard rules, called “Section 421,”  that the Chinese had agreed to obey to gain entrance to the World Trade Organization (WTO). They are, however, laws that had gone unenforced by the U.S. in the past.

President Obama used these safeguard rules to imposed tariffs on tires manufactured in China and imported into the U.S., following a recommendation by the International Trade Commission, an independent, bi-partisan group. The action made Obama the first president to execute sanctions under “Section 421.”

The International Trade Commission recommended sanctions under “Section 421” four times before Obama took office. Nothing was done. The result was closed American factories, lost American manufacturing jobs, diminished American dreams.

Not this time though. Not this president. Obama showed he’s made of tougher stuff. By placing tariffs on imported Chinese tires, President Obama put himself in the line of fire for the jobs of U.S. workers, for the preservation of U.S. manufacturing and, ultimately, for the stabilization of the U.S. economy.

Don’t kid yourself. This is a battle. For the U.S. to maintain a viable economy, it must sustain a strong manufacturing base. It must make products of value that can be sold here and overseas – not just swap paper, some of it bogus on Wall Street.

The U.S. economy is under attack by countries engaging in unfair trade. In the past decade, we’ve lost 40,000 manufacturing facilities. In just the 21 months since the Great Recession began, more than 2 million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs, making their unemployment rate 11.8 percent, significantly higher than the 9.7 percent rate for the average worker.

That’s what the Chinese tire case was all about. My union, the United Steelworkers (USW) filed it in April. We demanded penalties against China because it has smothered the U.S. market with tires. In 2004, its share of the U.S market was 4.7 percent. Four years later, it was 16.7 percent. In that time, the number of tires it sold rose from 14.6 million to 46 million. As a result, four U.S. tire manufacturing plants closed and 5,100 workers lost their jobs. Another three plants will close before year’s end, throwing 3,000 more U.S. workers on the street.

We filed for relief under “Section 421” for two reasons. One is that it provides quicker relief than other trade remedies. The other is that China consented to its provisions. When China wanted to get into the World Trade Organization in 2000, it secured U.S. support by agreeing to abide by Section 421 until 2013. Section 421 was designed to protect the U.S. economy by providing ways to combat unfair and damaging surges of particular Chinese imports.

In the past, corporations had asked for Section 421 tariffs. And we had joined them. This time, not one tire company joined us, though, to be clear, Goodyear was openly neutral. By contrast, Ohio-based Cooper, fought us. As did a collection of rag-tag import firms, one of which had nearly gone bankrupt after importing defective Chinese tires that had to be recalled after a series of crashes.

 Cooper, in testimony to the International Trade Commission, reported that all of the tires it makes at its Chinese plant, under its licensing agreement with the Chinese, must be exported until May, 2012. So it has a clear financial interest in preventing tariffs on imported tires to the U.S. The tire import companies have the same interest. For them, it’s about the money they make today, no matter how or where it’s made. They’ve got no allegiance to the U.S. and don’t care what happens to America’s future manufacturing capability or financial stability.

President Obama, by contrast, is a patriot who sees the big picture and takes the long view. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio was right when he said after the tire tariffs were announced:

“Today the President courageously stood up and enforced fair trade rules that will save jobs and help our communities. Since China joined the World Trade Organization, American workers have not been assured that the government would defend them against unfair trade. With this “Section 421” decision, President Obama has taken the side of American workers and manufacturers.

“Rigorous trade enforcement is a major piece of our manufacturing and global competitiveness strategy. If American workers and manufacturers are going to compete in the global market, they need to have a government that uses trade enforcement tools, including the Section 421 safeguard.”

American workers and American manufacturers can compete – when trade is fair. It’s unfair when countries don’t enforce their own labor regulations, including their own minimum wage laws. It’s unfair when U.S. companies abide by strict environmental regulations and those in other countries openly pollute air and water. It’s unfair when other countries allow their firms to steal trade secrets, when other countries demand that firms export all of their products for a certain number of years and when other countries manipulate the value of their currencies.

If trade laws aren’t enforced, America will lose virtually all manufacturing and become nothing but a dumping ground – a place where the rest of the world sells the stuff it makes. Fewer and fewer citizens in that America would be able to buy stuff after the factories close and all the jobs that they support disappear.

In announcing the tire trade sanctions — tariffs of 35 percent for a year beginning Sept. 26, 30 percent for a year after that, and 25 percent in the final year — U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said, “Enforcing trade laws is key to maintaining an open and free trading system.”

Unfair trade isn’t free.

President Obama is bold enough to draw that line of distinction for America.

By Leo W. Gerard
International President

For a brief moment, when Congress authorized that $700 billion bailout for the Wall Street wise guys whose recklessness caused the financial crisis that we’re all suffering, federal officials actually considered giving part of the money to foreign banks.

Really.

They quickly backed away from using American tax dollars to prop up overseas financial institutions.

But now, the same issue is at stake with the $825 billion economic recovery package. Fifteen groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable want to give American tax dollars to foreign manufacturers to create jobs overseas.

That’s right. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants to spend the tax dollars of unemployed Americans to create jobs in China and Indonesia, Korea and India.

The 15 business groups sent a letter to Congress opposing provisions added to the recovery package that would strengthen existing laws requiring government agencies buy American steel and other products when building public works projects with tax dollars.

The recovery package would use American tax dollars to pull the United States out of a deep recessionary hole caused by a blind belief that business knows best and shouldn’t be regulated – from banks to pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The package is, essentially, Americans agreeing to increase their national debt to revive an economy sucker punched by greedy Wall Street gamblers. So when business interests want to spend those tax dollars overseas, to create jobs there at the expense of unemployed Americans, while at the same time increasing the U.S. trade deficit, frankly, it looks a bit like treason.

To survive this economic catastrophe, Americans must assert themselves as economic patriots. They must stand up to the likes of the Chamber and the Roundtable and call them out for being economic traitors to the United States of America.

The measures proposed in Congress to strengthen the existing laws requiring that American products be purchased are simple, inexpensive and would not delay construction projects. For example, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown wants requests for waivers to the federal “Buy America” requirements to be publicly posted on the Internet in a place where people with knowledge of the situation can comment on them. That way, a government agency will likely quickly find out about attempts to use the waiver process to circumvent the rules.

The Chamber and the other business groups whine in their letter to Congress that strengthening “Buy America” rules may violate international agreements.

That’s bogus and the groups know it. America can honor its international obligations while using U.S. tax dollars to employ American workers. For example, states that receive federal grants for highway and mass transit projects may specify that products for that construction be purchased from U.S.-based producers without violating international agreements.

The Chamber and the other business groups also contended they were worried that strengthening the “Buy America” rules would prompt retaliation from foreign countries, so that U.S. companies would be prohibited from providing materials for construction funded by foreign stimulus programs.

When other nations nurture their industries and employ their own countrymen with their tax dollars, it won’t be retaliation. It will be reasonable. It will make good economic sense.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced in December that he would do whatever it took to save his country’s auto industry. No big protest broke out from anyone contending France should buy the auto parts from some low-priced American competitor. No, it seemed logical that France’s president would “buy French” and strive to rescue the industry that employs 10 percent of his population.

India already employs many protectionist measures to shield its industries. China subsidizes its manufacturers and manipulates its currency. But, somehow, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce thinks it’s wrong if U.S. tax dollars are spent in America to employ Americans.

These are the guys who were behind George W. Bush’s tax breaks for the rich these past eight years. These are the very ones whose wrongheaded policies brought America to its economic knees. And they are the business hotshots who don’t see that they’ve done anything wrong that should change.

Those Wall Street business wizards felt so entitled to Americans’ $700 billion in tax dollars given to bail them out that they spent it on $18 billion in year-end bonuses, a $16,000 commode and a $50 million Dassault Falcon 7X manufactured-in-France corporate jet. (Well, the Obama administration did tell Citigroup it had to cancel that jet.)

Here’s the thing to remember about these business groups so worried about preserving “free” trade. A dozen of them put America or U.S. in their names, like the United States Council for International Business. But it’s not the U.S. they care about. Their focus is themselves.

Many of them long ago shipped manufacturing overseas, to benefit from tax breaks provided by the Bush administration, slave wages paid to third world workers and zero enforcement of safety and environmental regulations. That’s why they oppose “Buy America” regulations. They want to use American tax dollars to pay subsistence wages at their factories in foreign countries, then ship the steel or aluminum or rubber back to the U.S. at untold cost to the environment and the trade deficit.

You can trust ‘em same as you can Bernie Madoff.

What you can trust is that empty feeling in your stomach and your pocket, a pang that’s spreading quickly while the U.S. Chamber busies itself trying to thwart “Buy America.” More than 2.55 million Americans have been thrown out of work since Bush’s recession began. On Monday alone, companies announced they would cut 75,000 more jobs. Unemployment stands at 7.2 percent, and it is expected to rise to 10 percent before year’s end if drastic action isn’t taken.

Drastic action isn’t sending American tax dollars overseas to create jobs there.

Last year, the Government Accountability Office reported that “Buy America” policies are effective by “protecting domestic employment through national infrastructure improvements that can stimulate economic activity and create jobs; protecting against unfair competition from foreign firms as a result of foreign government subsidies; and maintaining national security interests through the continued use and development of certain industries within the U.S. economy, like the iron and steel industries.”

That sounds like a policy worth investing in. A policy good for America.

By Leo W. Gerard

International President

 

The words Barack Obama uses are deeply meaningful to organized labor. He speaks to union members on a gut level about concepts that define their lives: unity and brotherhood.

Listen to what he says in his closing argument speech:

“Each of us has a responsibility to work hard and look after ourselves and our families, and each of us has a responsibility to our fellow citizens. That’s what’s been lost these last eight years – our sense of common purpose; of higher purpose. And that’s what we need to restore right now.”

That’s the theme of serving as a brother’s keeper that Obama detailed at the Democratic National Convention.

He continues in the “closing” speech:

“Yes, we can argue and debate our positions passionately, but at this defining moment, all of us must summon the strength and grace to bridge our differences and unite in common effort – black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; Democrat and Republican, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight, disabled or not.”

These are the lyrics of unity that have distinguished Obama throughout his campaign.

They resonate with union members, who unify to achieve greater good for all and who call each other brother and sister because we are willing to sacrifice for one another.

This is what has lured members of my union, the United Steelworkers, to work for a candidate for president harder and longer than they ever have before.

More than 10,000 Steelworkers have volunteered their time to ensure Barack Obama’s election. They’ve knocked on doors, manned phone banks, filled envelopes with letters of persuasion, leafleted at plant gates, worked to protect voters’ rights and helped with the Steel Blitz for Barack bus tour that took Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney and retired players on visits to battleground areas in Pennsylvania and Ohio over the past four weeks.

Steelworkers gathered together to accomplish these tasks, inspired by Barack Obama’s words of harmony:

“In this election, we cannot afford the same political games and tactics that are being used to pit us against one another and make us afraid of one another. The stakes are too high to divide us by class and region and background; by who we are or what we believe.

Because despite what our opponents may claim, there are no real or fake parts of this country. There is no city or town that is more pro-American than anywhere else – we are one nation, all of us proud, all of us patriots.”

By Election Day, Steelworker volunteers will have called and spoken to more than 105,000 union members in a dozen battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. It’s an incredibly time-consuming and frustrating endeavor because to reach that many human beings, 850,000 phone calls will have been made. Many of those were entreaties to answering machines. But Steelworkers carried on, spurred by Obama’s counsel that everyone must work together to be part of the solution:

“I ask you to believe – not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.”

On weekends and evenings, Steelworkers across the country went door-to-door, checking in with fellow union members to ensure they supported Obama and would vote on Nov. 4. This labor-intensive and gasoline-consumptive activity has proven incredibly effective in the past. Steelworker door-knocking aided both Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown and Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey in winning their seats over the past four years. Steelworkers volunteered to block-walk and drive-the-suburbs in the past two presidential elections as well, but the number who gave time this year was unprecedented. Their willingness to suffer blisters and high gasoline prices was inspired by Obama’s expression of their shared principles as U.S. citizens:

“Understand, if we want to get through this crisis, we need to get beyond the old ideological debates and divides between left and right. We don’t need bigger government or smaller government. We need a better government – a more competent government – a government that upholds the values we hold in common as Americans.”

At the USW headquarters in Pittsburgh, at district offices across the country, and at local union halls, volunteers spent countless lunch hours stuffing, not their stomachs, but envelopes. All together, the USW mailed nearly 4.5 million pieces of persuasive literature. That is a lot of folding and licking. It was worth the time for Steelworkers who understand negotiation and support Obama’s intent to talk to prevent war:

“I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the Twenty-First Century and I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.”

I’ve been part of the campaign as well, phone banking, block walking, and touring and talking with the Steel Blitz for Barack. I know great leadership when I see it. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was once Obama’s primary foe, mentioned what is for a union leader a key factor in leadership. Here’s what Richardson said during Obama’s half hour presentation to the American people Wednesday night about the Democratic candidate: “This guy is special because I think he can bring people together.”

That is what compelled 10,000 Steelworkers to donate their time and energy to Obama. He creates connections. He unifies. He motivates us all by calling on America to be the best she can be:

“In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

“In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history. . .

“. . . together we will change this country and we will change the world.”

Steelworkers joined untold thousands of other Obama enthusiasts across the country to get him elected. If he is, Steelworkers will remain active to support his goals and ours during an Obama administration.